[spectre] /Victims' Symptom/ - Open Call for Contributions (artworks, comments, texts and debate questions)

[Ana Peraica]

/Victims' Symptom/ - Open Call for Contributions (artworks, comments, 
texts and debate questions)

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/Victims’ Symptom/ http://victims.labforculture.org, curated by Ana 
Peraica (Croatia/The Netherlands) and commissioned by LabforCulture 
http://www.labforculture.org to celebrate its first year anniversary in 
the summer of 2007, invites the public to join in the preparation for 
the /Victims’ Symptom/ online debate to take place in April 2008. The 
project is focused on the following questions:

Why does the mass media prefer to talk in terms of numbers of corpses, 
calculating them morbidly, with apparent disregard for the victims’ 
status? Do numbers matter? Or is each loss a single one?

Does the number of victims reported by the media’s “truth speaking” make 
any real difference or is it perpetuating the media myth that cannot 
report on few? Who profits from death? Is there a bureaucracy of death? 
What is the dominant exchange rate between civilians and soldiers, our 
victims and their victims?

Is the cultural production of victims preventing us from seeing the 
actual victims? Are we able to see what happened only after a sufficient 
number of movies, novels and theses published on massacres? Is earning a 
degree on a massacre ethical? Furthermore, how can denying a massacre 
lead to no consequences? Are we losing our capacity for empathy? Are we 
victimised ourselves? Is there a therapy for such a world?

We are inviting the public to send in their responses to these questions 
in the following ways:

*1. **Links to existing projects to be reviewed*

Links should be accompanied by a short description (100 words max) 
explaining which particular curatorial question or questions they 
address. This description will subsequently accompany the selected links 
on the /Victims’ Symptom/ website.

*2. **Full, published texts or interviews (html, blog, wiki…) *

Texts should be summarised in a short description (200 words max) 
outlining the specific issues and questions they address. Texts that 
require users to login for access will not be considered.

*3. **Separate discussions on mailing lists, message boards and forums 
with public access *

Moderators with proposals for discussions should send an email outlining 
the concept along with the names of the proposed participants. If the 
discussion is to take place on external mailing lists, message boards or 
discussion forums, the forums should be open access and, optionally, 
have an RSS feed. A one-line description of the location of the 
discussion should be provided, stating the URL, focus of the group / 
forum, year it was founded, number of members, etc.**

Send an e-mail to _victims_symptom at yahoo.com_ with your proposal for 
participation by 21 March 2008.

All contributions will be reviewed by /Victims’ Symptom/ curator Ana 
Peraica and assistant Marko Stamenkovic' and selected material will be 
included in the online space and debate in April 2008.

For more information on /Victims’ Symptom/: 
_http://victims.labforculture.org_

-- 
LabforCulture is a partnership initiative of the European Cultural 
Foundation and would like to thank its funders for their support.

Be part of something bigger: One website, 50 countries, 5 languages.

http://www.labforculture.org

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